‘SWAG wants more support for lesser sports’

The President of the Sports Writers Association of Ghana, Kwabena Yeboah, has implored the Ministry of Youth and Sports to devote equal attention to all sporting disciplines in the country.

Mr Yeboah made the call yesterday when executive members of the SWAG paid a courtesy call on the Minister of Youth and Sports, Dr Mustapha Ahmed, and bemoaned the lack of financial support to the least-financed disciplines, while the Black Stars contninue to earn huge bonuses.

The SWAG executives at the meeting included the Vice President, Maurice Quansah, General Secretary William Ezah, Deputy General Secretary, Thomas Boakye Agyemang, Treasurer, Rosalind Amoh and Head of Events, Nii Maale-Adsei.

"I was paticularly worried during the last Cup of Nations when the Black Stars were going to earn $60,000 and the state believed it was meagre and topped it up with another $25,000," Mr Yeboah said.

"At a time when tennis had been banned from the International Tennis Federation (ITF) because they had failed to pay $10,000 affiliation fee and athletics had also been banned for failing to pay an affilliation fee of $15,000. I believe it is time for us to take a closer look at the other disciplines; it is true that football is the passion of the nation but football is not the only sport in this country.

"In that regard, I was particularly excited when I read that you were in Kazan to solidarise with the swimmers, which gives us the assurance that moving forward the other disciplines will be given their due share of the cake," he added.

He also expressed hope that the Ministry was doing all it could to ensure that Ghana had a successful All Africa Games campaign.

Dr Ahmed, in his address, lauded SWAG for its contributions to the development of sports in Ghana, while praising them for the guidance and positive criticisms it offers to the Ministry.

He said he was looking forward to a fruitful working relationship with SWAG, urging its members to devote more coverage to the least-financed disciplines in order to popularise them.

Dr Ahmed also disclosed that his outfit had paid the 2013 affiliation fees of most of the federations, assuring that all outstanding debts would be cleared by the end of the year.

The SWAG executives had earlier paid a similar visit to the National Sports Authority at the Accra Sports Stadium.